Silvi Rouskin, a Whitehead Fellow who studies RNA structure and its implications for health and disease, has been called by her colleagues fearless, relentless, fiercely independent and—if she’d started from a different place—perhaps smarts and curiosity alone would have let her follow a straight path to her goal.

Though born half-a-world apart—Jaenisch in Wölfelsgrund, Germany; Young in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—the two have collaborated virtually since each arrived at Whitehead in 1984, leveraging shared passions for discovery research and for exploring the Earth’s least-travelled paths.